Recent Posts
- Interrobang: What Is It and Why Haven’t You Ever Heard of It‽
Have you ever thought about where punctuation came from? The Birth of Punctuation You might think that periods, commas, semicolons, and dashes are as old as written language, but actually, for a long time, people would just write things down Read more… - How Do Question Marks Work with Other Punctuation?
The world of punctuation marks is a kind of soap opera. Some of the characters include the stoic, dependable period; the excitable and somewhat controversial exclamation mark; the overworked, flustered comma; the overlooked and under-appreciated semicolon; etc. Sometimes, those characters Read more… - How To Use Question Marks: 5 Simple Rules
Question marks might seem fairly straightforward: they come after a question. Easy enough! 😅 However, a few complications might pop up when it comes to punctuating indirect questions, deciding how question marks interact with other punctuation marks, and—heaven forbid—dealing with Read more… - 13 Words You Never Knew Were Onomatopoeias
I think we all know that words like bam! and pow! are onomatopoeias. But did you know about blimp, cliché, and laugh? Onomatopoeias: A Building Block of Language Onomatopoeia is defined as “the naming of a thing or action by Read more… - The 3 Theories of Language Origin: Bow-Wow, Pooh-Pooh, and Ding-Dong
No, really. That’s what the theories are actually called. I was researching onomatopoeias and accidentally stumbled upon the bow-wow theory of language origin. I thought that name was pretty funny, and then I glanced at the footnotes, which referenced two Read more… - Can You “Munch” on Cheese?
While researching for another article, I came across this entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage, which explains the word munch: “Copperud 1970, 1980 does not like munch when it is used of eating something that does not crunch.” Read more… - Much vs. Many: Is There a Difference?
We’re back with another “commonly confused words” pairing! We’ve covered further and farther, that and which, compliment and complement, affect and effect, and a whole lot more. Now, it’s time to dig into much and many. If you’ve already mastered Read more… - Compliment vs. Complement: Is There a Difference?
After the whole insure vs. ensure vs. assure debacle, I started to question every similar word pairing out there. What about who vs. whom? That vs. which? Affect vs. effect?? There are a lot of word pairings with meanings that Read more… - Ensure vs. Insure vs. Assure: Is There a Difference?
If you’ve ever wondered what the difference is between ensure and insure, you’re definitely not alone. And to make things even more confusing, we can also throw in assure, which has a similar sound and meaning. WHY do we need Read more… - How To Pluralize Acronyms
Acronyms are words formed from the first letter or letters of each word in a compound term. Technically, an acronym must be pronounced as a single word; when you say each letter individually, it’s an initialism. For the purposes of Read more… - Redundonyms: Why It’s WRONG To Say “ATM Machine” and “PIN Number”
Is redundonym a made-up word? The spell-check feature on my computer certainly seems to think so. But it’s a perfectly good word to describe redundant acronyms, plus it’s just super fun to say out loud (it bounces down your tongue Read more… - Indefinite Articles Before Acronyms: Is It “A URL” or “AN URL”?
Is it “a LED display” or “an LED display”? And would you say “a URL” or “an URL”? Choosing between a or an is one of those grammatical things that native English speakers might have an instinct for, but it’s Read more… - NEVER Use a Comma in These Situations
Commas have many, MANY uses, from separating elements in a series to setting off introductory phrases to separating a speaker from their quotation to surrounding nonrestrictive clauses and so much more. But there are definitely some times when you should Read more… - 5 Punctuation Marks That Can REPLACE Letters or Words
Punctuation marks don’t just exist to end sentences. They have a whole range of jobs, like introducing quotations, marking transitions mid-sentence, and connecting compound words. Another one of their many jobs is to REPLACE missing letters or words, and this Read more… - The 2 Most CONTROVERSIAL Punctuation Practices
You know, I really wish there were just one hard-and-fast set of grammar rules that everyone agreed on and followed all the time. That’d make things much easier for writers, editors, students, and anyone learning English as a second language. Read more… - 20 English Words You Might Be Mispronouncing
I’m a textbook introvert who reads a lot and doesn’t like to talk very much. Consequently, I have frequently learned a new word, pronounced it a certain way in my head, and then later learned (sometimes in embarrassing ways) that Read more… - 9 Popular Phrases You Might Be Saying WRONG
Hold on to your hat because this post just might blow your mind. Even if you’re a native English speaker, you might be getting these nine common phrases WRONG. Each of these phrases has an unfortunate buddy that SOUNDS like Read more… - Spaghetto Is a Single Spaghetti (And 13 Other Uncommon Singular Words)
Spaghetto, paparazzo, and confetto may sound unnatural and strange to our ears, but they’re real singular words! The same goes for die, magum, and a bunch of other uncommon singular forms of plural words that we use all the time. Read more… - Shakespeare Did NOT Invent “Puke”: The Semi-Scandalous Truth Behind English’s Greatest Word Inventor
Folks who are passionate about English and grammar love to talk about William Shakespeare. He’s called “The Bard”—not “a bard,” “THE Bard”—because he’s widely considered to be the greatest English poet (and one of the greatest storytellers) who ever lived. Read more… - 38 Taylor Swift Lyrics That Will Have You Reaching for a Dictionary
Hey kids, spelling is fun! Songwriters are poets, and Taylor Swift is arguably one of the best. No one can tell me that “You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath” isn’t some of the Read more…